Greenwood Leather

Another year whizzes by and its time for the European Leather Workers and Artists Trade Show (ELWATS) in the Netherlands.

This year, I'm pleased to be offering my own course on making a leather plaited Christmas tree...
https://www.facebook.com/share/19nLF7DR77/

The background to this started when I discovered some of my ancestors were "straw plaiters" in the 1800's. After find out more about straw plaiting, I transferred the technique into a method suitable for leather. This resulted in the making of "leather lace" that can be formed into a Christmas decoration.

I often volunteer at a local repair Cafe in the village, at the last meeting I was asked if the lacing on a leather seat could be repaired. The original lace was either non-existant or falling out, so it needed replacing with new.

I used a Spanish double loop edge lacing style to complement the style of the leather embossing. Just need to check with the owner to see whether the new lacing should be dyed to the same colour as the seat or left asis.

Images show before and after.

It's been a busy year of European travel and many leather projects in-between. Inspired by fellow leather workers and new ideas from visits that included the Florence School of Leather, the many offerings on the Florence market, visit to Armin Dobsetter's workshop in Germany, and other requests from previous customers.

Now it's time to get ready for the European Leather Worker and Artist Trade Show (aka ELWATS) in Arnhem. Travel plans have been booked, courses confirmed, and extra days added to our travel to visit some medieval towns in Germany.

Looking forward to learning some new techniques and taking on new projects!

The Leather Crafters Journal is celebrating its 200th edition and in recognition of that, a group of leather workers from this side of the Atlantic (i.e. Europe) have contributed to a little thank you message to the magazine producers.
The video can be seen here:

Celebrating with the Journal - 200 Issue ! The ever-growing community of leather craftsmen in Europe congratulates Leather Crafter`s Journal on its 200th issue.Thank to all who have contributed.If you...

A new year project was to make one of the leather tool cases, in fact I made three and wore out my fingers in the process!!
Stitching through 12mm of leather is hard work 🙂

@ Chinnor

Latest project was to cover a pair of sun visors from a Mercede sports car with leather.
The original visors were covered in plastic, which didn't complement the leather upholstery of the car. The foam padding had also hardened over the years and so the plastic covers were looking rather sad.

A smooth black leather was selected to replace the plastic and new foam inserts were made to bring the visors up to a standard befitting thd rest of the car.

A little key case is the latest project, must make a few more for Christmas stocking fillers!

This one is embellished with a 5 yen Japanese coin, other options are being worked on!

Working on a new handbag design, still a few more "tweaks" to get it looking how I want, but it's getting there!

Just finished work on a prototype simple wallet to check the sizing. All works OK, so now it's time to start on the "real" wallet.😊

Lots of projects were completed during the summer months, more on those later...

For now, here's a natural product (no animal products) in a cork material wallet. Complete with RFID protection, I took a leather design and adapted for use with this cork material. Currently available in black, natural, blue or combinations of these. Other colours also can be made available if required.

I'll get the details added to my website later tonight.
😊

Here's something very different from my usual ventures....

My wife is using one of my handbag patterns to put the finishing touches to a display outfit. A sparkly handbag made from thick plastic sheeting for tonight's event at Secret Cinema and the futurist film Blade Runner.

It will be interesting to see how it turns out...!